STUDENTS at the University of Essex have been shown pictures of pop babe Britney Spears, as a way of spicing up maths lessons.

Scientists hit on the idea of using the American singer's curves to illustrate a mathematical graph on a Web site and now it's being used at the English university.

The site ( www.britneyspears.ac ) has become a shrine for physicists and Britney fans, who have reportedly notched up nearly a million hits and it is now linked to from the university's own pages ( www.essex.ac.uk ).

Visitors get an eyeful of Britney and in return she spouts speech bubbles containing complicated mathematical formulae.

The Web site has been in operation for the past eight months and has had visitors from four continents.

Many of the 5,000 hits per day have come from people who are only looking for information about Britney, but many physicists are genuinely logging on in the name of science.

The Web site was the brainchild of Carl Hepburn, who is studying for a Masters degree.

Carl said: "I developed the Web site to share my research with others interested in semiconductor physics. I used Britney Spears to demonstrate that physics can have a fun side to it as well."